JWST is relatively tiny relative to larger Earth-based telescopes, but its infrared capabilities and position above the atmosphere could allow it to locate potentially habitable planets around other stars, perhaps even extraterrestrial life.

The telescope is being assembled in at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The Hubble Space Telescope suffered similar setbacks to JWST. Hubble was originally intended to launch in 1983, but technical issues delayed the launch until 1990. NASA discovered that the HST’s main mirror had been incorrectly manufactured after launch, forcing the space agency to install a corrective lens in orbit using the Space Shuttle.

JWST will not have such a generous margin for error as it will be located far beyond Earth’s orbit at the Sun-Earth L2 LaGrange point, which would make such a Hubble style fix extremly difficult. Furthermore, the telescope is supposed to unfold itself “origami style” in space as depicted in the NASA animation below. The unfolding process is technically complicated and could potentially lead to a disastrous mission failure.

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